On one side there was the 2016 Committee led by Pat Ryan, the founder of AON Insurance and Lori Healey, the former Chief of Staff to Mayor Daley and behind them stood the entire Chicago business, media, academic, philanthropic and nonprofit communities.

BRO margins are far superior to its competitors as it focuses on the small and lower end of the mid market customers where as AJ Gallagher, Marsh, AON and others are mainly concentrating on higher end mid and large markets.

The most important takeout for my Ariel shareowners and readers of this column was insurer AON's (AON, 39) $4.9 billion acquisition of human resources specialist Hewitt (HEW, 50) at a 41% premium to the previous day's close.